Limbaugh questions Romney's comment on fixing 'safety nets'

2/1/12 5:25 PM EST

Rush Limbaugh spent part of today's radio show unpacking Mitt Romney's comment about "the very poor" on CNN earlier today, and suggested he gets that the candidate may have made a garbled remark taken out of context.

But he also took issue with Romney's second point, about the social "safety net" programs being the reason why he said he's not worried about the very poor.

From the transcript:

"Right, the safety net is contributing to the destruction of their humanity and their futures! Everybody knows what he's trying to say but he didn't say it and he makes himself a target with this stuff. He comes across as the prototypical rich Republican. And it's gonna make it harder and harder and harder and harder to go after Obama because this turns around on him. You know, all these Wizards of Smart in the Republican establishment say, 'We can't have Newt out there! Why, Newt's gonna be the topic. We need Obama to be the topic. We need Obama to be the guy campaign's about. If Newt's out there, it's only gonna be about Newt.' Well, what evidence is there that it's not gonna be about Romney with these kinds of statements?"

Later, he added:

"Everybody knows what he's trying to say here, but you give them 'I'm not concerned about the very poor,' you chop it off there and it could be about anything. I'm not concerned about the poor in the way they're eating. I'm not concerned about the poor and the car they have. I'm not concerned about the poor and where they live. You can do all kinds of things with that. And it isn't gonna be enough to say, (crying) 'You've taken that out of context.' We know what he's trying to do. He's trying to zero in and tell the middle class, 'I'm thinking of you.' But this repair the safety net stuff? The safety net is contributing to poverty. The safety net contributes to poverty. It does not solve it. We've got proof every year since the Great Society and whatever else Johnson named it, starting in the sixties. It hasn't fixed anything."

This is a similar point to one made by the Weekly Standard's John McCormack — that the comment wasn't just a gaffe but is "un-conservative."

For whatever reason, Romney has developed something of a habit of marring what should be a good news cycle with a throwaway line, as he did in the final days of the New Hampshire race. And it has often pertained to something involving jobs or income, which only feeds the Democrats' parodies of him.